Core ’19 and Goblins

After a long period of running Magic: The Gathering events at our establishments, reaching our one year anniversary on 14/07/2018, we have decided to start up a Magic blog as part of our 75 Church Street website, written by myself, Harry Smith. The Cutter Family Businesses have employed me for the past year, working in the store and at their boardgames café Dice and Doughnuts, where I work as a Dungeon Master for D&D 5th edition as well as other systems for their Intro to RPGs. I originally started playing Magic back in 2006 with Coldsnap but had a break halfway through rejoining with Oath of the Gatewatch, playing Commander and Standard more consistently and starting Modern.

With the release of Core Set 2019 last Friday I wanted to discuss some of the decks which have appeared in our regular play group at the store and look at some interesting new cards from the set. So what better time to bring this up than with boosters going on sale last Friday at the store, the opening up of an order form for ordering in a booster box of any of the recent sets including Core 2019, and an organised draft at 75 Church Street?

One key deck which jumps to mind when I discuss some of those played in-store is a standard goblin deck. This deck obviously got a lot of support from the release of Dominaria, a set which had some key reprints for these decks such as Siege-Gang Commander and Goblin Prospector but also the new, much spoken-about (at least in the ban announcements from Wizards of the Coast!) Goblin Chainwhirler – which has added a strong hitter to the deck that can clear the board for your smaller goblins to get through and deal those last points of damage for what is essentially an aggro deck.

But enough about Dominaria, though we do still have plenty of boosters in stock – I wanted to discuss some new pieces for this deck in the release of Core 18. There are some amazing cards which I think a lot of people are hoping to open for this aggressive goblin deck, those being Goblin Instigator, Goblin Trashmaster and Volley Veteran. These cards obviously lend themselves amazingly to the tribal synergies we are seeing for goblins at the moment, one being a lord who will also incidentally allow the red decks to run an answer to artifacts with no opportunity cost, after rotation takes away Abrade along with the rest of the Amonkhet and Kaladesh blocks. Another is simply dragon fodder on a creature, a 1/1 goblin which makes a friend when he enters, but even better can be reduced in cost by Goblin Warchief. And finally we have Volley Veteran, another great removal spell for the goblin deck that has a high ceiling of damage attached to a 4/2 body.

Talking about goblins, it would be remiss of me to not mention one of my favourite goblin reprints: Guttersnipe. Though I don’t expect the card to see much play in a goblins tribal deck, it does make me want to play Izzet Spells again, especially in draft. However this card may also be the missing piece to making a strong Izzet Spells deck both within the Core Set 2019 draft and sealed environments as well as in the standard scene, giving a strong pay-off to casting spells which doesn’t rely on swinging in with a big-bodied creature as is currently the case in these decks.

But that’s enough for now – I think I’ve rambled on for long enough about just one deck we see up in Lancaster, which I hope to see thrive through the new sets and rotation. Next time I write I swear I’ll talk about other decks we see in the store and maybe come along with some fun stories from the Core 2019 draft. And keep an eye on this space as we announce how to pre-order Commander 2018 and also how to order in booster boxes along with other board gaming products we are selling. I’m pretty sure we have a few Planeschase Anthologies needing a loving home and all the sleeves you need to sleeve up those draft decks you will be building Friday!